


no night but shadows

by msrheadcanon



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Emotional, Emotional Sex, Episode Related, Episode: s02e22 F. Emasculata, F/M, POV Fox Mulder, Season 2, Smut, UST to RST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 10:07:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25967863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msrheadcanon/pseuds/msrheadcanon
Summary: a worried mulder shows up at scully's apartment late at night
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 15
Kudos: 72





	no night but shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my fantastic betas [ScullyLovesQueequeg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScullyLovesQueequeg), [FragileVixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fragilevixen), [Pretty__Boy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pretty__Boy/pseuds/Pretty__Boy) and [starbuckthirteen (tumblr)](https://starbuckthirteen.tumblr.com/). Couldn't have done it without you!

SCULLY'S APARTMENT, 1:15AM

Mulder hesitates, the smooth wood under his palm coolly unaware of the turmoil just beneath his skin. Making himself push forward, he knocks, not knowing and yet afraid of certainty.

His heart speeds up when he doesn’t hear someone right away. The turning of the lock abates his fear, but only a little. He’s still not sure if he’ll be faced with her mother, her sister, or her God, ready to cast judgment upon him. He’s relieved when he sees her shining red hair and curious expression.

“Mulder?”

“Can I come in?”

He told himself that he was only here to make sure his life hadn’t ended, that her report belied the fact that she’d soon be carried off in a plastic coffin to die a horrible, disfiguring death. Her unblemished skin and mild concern, only for him, gives him some courage. The rare comforting space between fear and guilt.

Scully pauses a moment, looks him up and down. She’s wearing her warm white robe, hair gently curled, face scrubbed clean, freckles peeking through the shine on her face. By contrast, he looks like he’s been to hell and back, and knows that she’s wondering if he came from a bar or some unsuccessful X-Files hunt, the product of a bad decision either way. He’s an intruder, disrupting the perfect domesticity that she’s created in her home; of course, she lets him in anyway.

Tossing off his leather jacket, he remembers to remove his shoes and slumps into the embrace of her couch; not a place for sleep or work, but conversation. She sits in the chair opposite him and waits, curling her slippered feet underneath her. He’s thankful for her patient mood.

He stares at his hands, ruminating over just what it is he’s doing here. What it is exactly that he came here for, now that he has confirmation that Scully is safe and sound. When he peers up at her, she raises an eyebrow, smiles slightly. That she doesn’t mind his barging into her life, her home, at ungodly hours gives him hope. Maybe she likes him. Just a little. He doesn’t fucking deserve it, but he holds onto that thought like a cliff’s edge, the sharp rock the only thing preventing his fast descent.

He chuckles and stares at the floor, breaking the uneasy silence that settled over them. He’s glad she can’t read his mind, his overdramatic musings at once too much and yet never enough.

“Did you want some tea? Water?”

He sits back and looks at her again. Despite the hour, she’d been awake when he knocked. The television is paused at some gruesome scene -- _Rosemary’s Baby_ he thinks -- and there’s a giant mug of tea on the table along with a small bowl of disgustingly white unbuttered popcorn. She’s bundled and comfortable, and he thinks about her normal becoming his as well, that it feels right, despite the popcorn. The thought is banished as quickly as it forms -- he doesn’t **_belong_** here. He was the reason she’d been awake, the reason she wasn’t sleeping peacefully, as she deserved. 

“Why didn’t you tell me what happened at the jail?” He accuses. Scully’s back straightens, and he knows she knows what he means because her eyes don’t harden at his challenge.

She licks her top lip and sighs, looking down at her lap...

“It didn’t matter once I saw you again, I wasn’t infected.” Her hands dance across the terrycloth of her robe. Fidgeting was her tell when she was uncomfortable with something, he knew, and usually he’d back off and let her form her thoughts, but he **_needed to know_**.

“Would you have told me if you were?”

Scully’s gaze rises sharply to meet his again, indignant protest in her blue eyes. They battle silently for a moment, but Mulder’s accusation falls flat in the truth of the matter. Of course she would. Closing his eyes, he lays his head back against the couch. He should leave, he has all the answers he needs. He just needs a few seconds to breathe.

He hears the clatter of the remote as she turns off the television, the whisper of her slippers as she crosses to him. The instinct he’d had to bolt at her approach vanishes when she rests her warm hand on his leg.

“Why are you really here, Mulder?” Her voice is soft again, worried. 

His rumpled shirt and wild hair tell the truth of his emotional state. She gives and she gives and she gives. Her mind, her trust, her strength. He takes and takes. Her time, her life. But he's left with nothing in the end, while she's bursting, full of everything he wants but cannot receive.

“I... can’t keep doing this, Scully.”

Her thumb draws comforting circles around the outside of his thigh, and he focuses on it. Imagines leaving his body, following the point of her thumb straight through to her soul, somehow finding a way to tell her without using words.

“You mean putting me at risk.”

He just looks at her, sighs.

“I’ve told you I need to work. I chose to enter the FBI, to take a field position. Not to live my life safely as a doctor or a teacher. To be by your side finding the truth.” She moves her hand to cover his own, which had moved to pick at her couch, worrying the material until it frays. Does he ruin everything he touches?

“But--”

“No, Mulder,” she interrupts. “When I was in that jail, they wouldn’t give me any information. I had to go searching for it.”

“Scully, I don’t think--”

“Let me finish.” 

As much as he doesn’t want her to give him any more fuel for his nightmares, he remains silent.

“I was in the incinerator. I’d opened up a body bag, was looking at one of the victims, at the pustules that covered their skin.”

Mulder winces at the memory, the pulsating greenish welts threatening to burst at any second. Right on the boy. Instead, a bullet and brain matter. Nightmares and therapy for the kid for the rest of his life.

“Doctor Osborne found me there, tried to warn me away, but it was too late. The boil evacuated. All over him, and, I thought, all over myself.” Scully pauses and looks away with a tight frown, her shoulders drooping, speaking her next words reluctantly. “I understand your guilt, Mulder. A little. He died because of me.”

Mulder shakes his head. “No, Scully… he was there by choice--”

She leans closer, presses her other hand firmly to his lips, keeping him silent. “And it’s _my_ choice.”

Something shifts. The horror of the case fades abruptly, the heat of her body next to his comes into sharp focus, pressed near in her need to comfort. He can smell her soap, the lotion she uses on her hands. Her hair is lit from behind, shines like a halo. She’s so **_beautiful_**.

So he takes her thumb in his mouth, sees her eyes dilate and shift to watch his lips as he suckles. But she doesn’t move away.

One of his hands moves up her arm to cup her face, angling it upwards. He releases her thumb with an audible pop and she slides it over his plush lower lip, taking her own between her teeth.

“Is this okay?” Mulder leans towards her, slipping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer.

“Yeah,” Scully sighs.

“You sure?” 

“My choice.” She grins and closes the distance between them.

Mulder didn’t think things through when he took her thumb in his mouth, but the touch of her soft lips to his dashed away any thoughts of leaving her here with only a few sweet, nearly-friendly kisses. Something sparked, instantly, as their lips connected, and neither of them would be able to pretend this was simply an inappropriate but friendly moment between colleagues.

Did she crawl into his lap, or did he pull her on top of him? Like everything between them, he thought it was a bit of both. Her tongue in his, swiping across the roof of his mouth, the cage of his teeth. She tastes like flowers, salt, and something else that he knows is just her. Time has no meaning, and when she pulls away and rests her forehead on his, they’re both gasping for breath. He’s bereft, despite her closeness; diminished, despite his need to breathe.

Needing to keep connected, he finds the space just below her ear and kisses a hot trail down to her collarbone. A hum from deep within her chest accompanies his caress. He nuzzles her skin with his cheek, finds the layers of clothing hiding her from him suddenly offensive.

Thick fuzzy terrycloth gives way to the slick smoothness of her pajamas. She shrugs her shoulders and it falls to the floor in a heap, her hot mouth connecting with his once more. 

As his hands glide up her ribcage, over the silky material, all he can think about is consuming her. Holding her close and disappearing into her soft skin. He winds his fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck, wonders at the feel of her small body against him. His thoughts zip from place to place: where he wants to kiss her next, memorizing the smell and feel of her, suppressing his own desires in an attempt to figure out what she likes, what she wants.

He reaches for the hem of her top, but she pulls away, stands, and holds her hand out to him. She’s smiling at him, trembling as she holds it there. Looking at her delicate fingers, he's worried that if he left the couch, he’d be just as likely to run out the door as he would to follow her. Her expression changes as she waits for him, confidence and desire giving way to uncertainty and shyness, something he’s never seen grace her features until now.

He takes her hand, lets her lead. He trusts her, more than himself.

They stand at the end of her bed, hands clasped together. He’s nervous, all of a sudden. The electricity between them fades, fills with awkwardness.

Releasing his hand, she starts unbuttoning her top, but he sees her hands shaking and knows it’s not just him. Covering her hand with her own, he places his finger at her chin and lifts her head to look at him. The light from the doorway brightens her face. Her eyes are deep indigo, and a flush brightens her cheeks. Her chest rises rapidly as they look at each other, the sound of their breathing and the ticking of the clock on her bedside table breaking the silence. As each tick and each puff of breath beats against his ears, he feels the moment slipping away.

It’s Scully who breaks the standoff. She grasps the collar of his shirt and pulls him down into a kiss. The tension between them dissipates, the passion reigniting. All of the doubt disappears at the touch of her lips against his. Her hands wind through his hair, tug not-so-gently. He resumes the task of unbuttoning her shirt, encouraging her efforts with a soft groan.

“Please, Scully,” he says, mouthing her name against her lips. _Please love me. Please touch me. Please don’t stop. Please let this really be happening._

His fingers release the last button, push aside the material, graze along the smooth skin of her back. As they divest themselves of the rest of their clothing, Scully nips at his bottom lip, drawing blood in her fervor. Pulling away quickly, she raises a finger to his mouth, caresses the spot where she injured him.

“Sorry,” she says, and he sees the uncertainty start to creep back.

He shakes his head in amazement that she **_considers_** him and chuckles softly. “Don’t be.”

Scully stares at him, her eyes darkening, and a smile perking up the corners of her mouth. “You liked that?”

“Oh, yeah.” 

Grabbing her shoulders, he brings her close, kissing her roughly and guiding them both onto the bed. She’s underneath him, surrounded by him. Light against dark, hard against soft.

The spark in her eyes and the playful smile both betray her enjoyment of his attempt to wrest control away from her. She doesn't give in, though, fights back just as hard, pushes him away and pulls him back. Like the tides, his Scully, the inevitable surge against time and distance. 

_His._

When he grinds his erection against her leg, she whimpers - **_whimpers_**. His thoughts wander to places he usually avoids: how sexy she is, whether wielding her gun or her scalpel or her skeptical gaze. And now, nothing but her luminous skin, piercing eyes, and plush lips. As his hands wrap around her waist, he encompasses all of her with the width of his hand. Her presence makes everyone else seem so insignificant, it's easy to forget that she's so fucking **_tiny_**.

Nipping and grasping turns into soft caresses, his touch feathering her ribcage, dusting along the small curve of her abdomen, slipping down to slick against her wet slit.

“Oh… yes,” Scully whispers into his ear. Her nibbles turn into licks, as if they know they want this to last, that it might not be forever. That they could make time stand still in her bed, just for tonight.

He moves downward, swirls his tongue around one hardened nipple than the other. Pausing there, finding himself stuck. Her hand brushes through his hair as he nips and teases her hardened peaks. Glancing upwards, wanting to see her, needing to know if this is right, he sees her head thrown back, her other hand tangled in her own hair, eyes squeezed shut. Her mouth is open and relaxed, uttering soft moans and unintelligible words, and then it hits him. 

“Muuh...lderrr…”

The way she says his name, how it rolls off her tongue. He'd thought he'd heard it said with every possible inflection, but this is his new favorite. The cadence of the sigh-like "Mu", the extended "r". It sends a shiver down his spine, vibrating along his limbs, through the tips of his fingers and toes. He breathes against her, closes his eyes, and takes a moment to recover.

Moving upwards, he caresses the side of her face and waits for her to look at him. Her eyes open, and she blinks a few times to focus. 

“Why’d you stop?” 

He chuckles at her protest, at the breathy whine that peeks through. Kissing her mouth a few times, he looks at her. Watches her expression change from mildly frustrated to tender. The fan of her hair against her pillow beckons him, and he threads his fingers through the strands, combing them out neatly, giving her a halo.

Scully’s hands wander, tracing down his neck, along his shoulder blades and around to play with the hair on his chest. Dancing her thumbs across his nipples, he jerks backward, a jolt of electricity moving through him at her touch. Her grin widens and she tweaks them in her fingers, pushes him back and over, moves downwards and swipes her tongue around the sensitive flesh. 

She glides her tongue along his chest, dips into his navel, lower, lower. Traveling across his skin, leaving a soothing wet trail and an aching anticipation as she moves downwards.

Gentle hands trace the veins of his cock, graze the head, sweep the drop of liquid from its tip. She’s looking at him as she tests the weight of his balls in a hand, as the other takes his cock and strokes up and down a few times. He’s impossibly hard, knows that if she continues this will end much sooner than he’d like.

He scoots away from her, evading her deft hands, and pins her underneath him. The movement is more forceful than he intended, but her mischievous smile silences his apology.

When his breathing steadies, he kisses away her pout. He drags his nose along her cheekbone and breathes in the scent of her hair. Presses gentle kisses along her neck, feeling the pulse of her jugular with his tongue. The life of her, so intertwined with his own, the steady beat keeping him afloat.

As his touch travels down her body, he feels her tense, relax, whispers encouraging him on his journey. The musky scent of her arousal, growing stronger as he dips downwards, tastes her for the first time.

She writhes as he slicks his tongue upwards along her folds, his nose bumping her clit just briefly. The hair on her mound tickles his cheek, and he loves all of her. Kissing, sucking, nibbling with his lips. He memorizes her, drowns himself in her smell, her taste, the vision of her in front of him, her voice anchoring him to the present. Resists the urge to thrust against the edge of the bed, to make this about her, to let this last.

Trembling against him, her inner walls contracting around his fingers, he steadies her with his arms, avoids being crushed by her thighs. As she relaxes, he rests his head against her and dreams of always being surrounded by her - her liquid warmth on his chin, her scent enveloping him, the salty indescribable taste of her on his tongue.

He pulls away reluctantly, searches through the pile of clothes they discarded in their haste earlier. In his pocket, he finds his wallet, in it a condom, thankfully not expired. 

Climbing up next to her, he pulls her next to him and brushes a soothing kiss against the flushed skin of her shoulder. He attempts to open the package but his palms are slick from sweat and Scully, and as a bonus, he’s shaking like a nervous teenager. Feeling foolish and inadequate, he’s about to throw the damn thing across the room when her small hands encompass his and she takes the square of foil from his grasp. His emotions settle at her gentle touch, and he leans down and kisses her firmly, gratefully. As her tongue slides into his mouth and tastes him thoroughly, he wonders: does she like the taste of herself on him? 

He lays down next to her as she takes over, resting his hand on her leg when she sits up, drawing circles with his thumb, remembering what started all of this tonight. He studies her, eyes traveling over the soft curves of her breasts, her slim waist, the jut of her hip, and softness of her thighs. Hearing the rip of the package, his eyes dart back upwards and he sees the wrapper hanging from her mouth. The shyness creeps back into her face as she holds the condom between them.

“If you’re not sure--” he starts.

Scully looks at him, raises her eyebrow, and shakes her head. 

“It’s just been a while.”

Mulder nods but doesn’t say anything. For him, unfortunately, it hasn’t.

His mind flashes back to the memories of when she’d been taken. Shame wells up, threatens to overtake him. The details of the case in L.A. were left deliberately vague, but Scully wasn’t stupid, she could read between the lines. She knew the risks he took, what he’d done. He was a piece of shit and Scully was…Scully was--

Her hand cups his face, and he returns to her. 

“No, Mulder.”

The shyness is gone, replaced by familiar certainty, his steadfast partner holding him up, rescuing him from himself. When she gets him to smile, she withdraws. She places the condom on him and is straddling him in two quick movements, bottom lip between her teeth, eyes sparkling in anticipation. Bringing him back, moving things forward. She’s efficient, his Scully.

**_His._ **

Delicate hands dance along his shoulders and press into his chest before she locks her eyes with his and adjusts himself at her entrance.

He watches as she takes him in. Her brow is furrowed, eyes squeezed shut like their lovemaking is a mystery that needs solving. Maybe it is? She inches down on his cock, agonizingly slowly, adjusting to his size before she finally surrounds him.

When she opens her eyes, looks at him, his breath catches. _It’s really her._

He breathes out, feels the poison that consumes him, drives him, slip away into the darkness of her apartment. Breathing in and watching her move above him, his heart swells. He feels her everywhere, deep inside his marrow, every neuron in his brain - hers, hers. A beautiful tangle, something he hopes never unknots.

He sees her, really sees her. Her outer shell, her private warmth. All of it. But more importantly, looking into her eyes, he believes she sees him too. Even the ugliness that he tries to hide. But instead of disappointment and fear she caresses his face, loves him harder. For the first time, he believes he’s worthy, not only of her but of **_this_**.

“You feel that, Scully?” His voice breaks the silence, raspy and breathless.

She smiles briefly, grinds her hips around him, flicks her thumbs around his nipples. “Oh, yeah.”

“No,” he says, as he stills her movements with a hand on her hip. He needs to know. Is this as monumental for her as it is for him? Is all of this one-sided?

He places his hand over her sweat-slicked skin, where he feels her heart beating. He focuses on a smattering of freckles near his thumb, imagines he can see the universe. Raising his eyes to her face, he can't find adequate words to express the emotions swirling inside of him.

“This.”

She looks at him. He can feel her brain calculating all the possible meanings of his words. He hopes his eyes convey what he can’t speak.

A small nod, almost imperceptible if he hadn’t been looking for a sign. Leaning forward, she presses her lips against his. Tears fall down the side of his face as he squeezes his eyes shut. He wraps his hand through her hair and kisses her back thoroughly, until he’s sure the tear tracks have blended into the sweat at his temples. 

She starts moving again, rocking against him with soft thrusts, keeping her forehead pressed firmly against his own. 

His hands wander up her back, counting her vertebrae. His teeth clasp at the junction of her neck and shoulder. He’ll have to ask her if there’s a name for it. 

Slow movements shift quickly into erratic desperation. She’s tensely coiled, shoulders bunched as she grasps his chest, embeds her nails into the skin of his shoulders, marking him. Exhaustion causes her to falter, hands trembling and breath catching in her throat as he flicks his finger over her nipples, strains upwards to claim her rosy peaks with his mouth.

His Scully. **_His_**.

He takes control, wrapping his hands around her hips, marveling again at how small she is, yet how well they fit together. She’s so warm, so tight, and he’s glad for the barrier of the condom, it keeps him from falling towards the edge too quickly. What she would feel like without it, he can’t even imagine.

She’s so close, moans lengthening, deepening, a thread connecting him to this reality. The flush of her chest deepens, spreads, the pitch of her voice rises, and she stiffens as her inner walls pulse around him. 

He catches her when she falls, kisses her temple. Moves her underneath him once more and waits. Watches. So beautiful. Her heavy lids lift, swollen lips reach for his, and they kiss as she returns to herself.

Her hand wraps around his neck, and she whispers in his ear. “I almost feel embarrassed.”

“For what?” Mulder pulls away to look at her.

“I feel… greedy,” she says. “This isn’t just about me, you know.”

“Believe me, Scully, I’m enjoying myself.”

She grins broadly, a smile he rarely sees that crinkles the edges of her eyes, places a dimple in her cheek. “Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Well get moving, then,” she says impatiently.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Her laugh fades as he starts thrusting, slow for only a few moments before the pleasure at the edge of his senses calls to him. Encouraging him, she grabs onto him, bites his shoulder, lifts her legs to wrap around his waist. He buries his face into her neck, breathes Scully. Her nails pierce into the skin of his back, and he imagines she wants to crawl deep inside him just as much as he wants to crawl inside of her.

It’s that thought and the sound of her gentle whisper calling his name that pushes him over the edge. He’s floating, all the darkness banished in a moment of pure, clear light. He drives into her a few more times, strains against her soft body, and somehow remembers to collapse to her side instead of crushing her beneath him.

Lying beside her, catching his breath for a moment, he keeps his hand entwined tightly in hers. He’s afraid if he lets go he’ll wake up, have to face the reality of life without having experienced this moment with her. Turning to face her, he watches her chest rise and fall, feels her pulse in the tight grasp of his hand steady. Holds on for just a few more moments.

He rises when her hand relaxes in his, thinks she’s asleep. In her bathroom, he removes the condom and disposes of it, pees and cleans himself, fetches a warm, damp cloth and brings it out to her. She’s lying in the same position he left her, legs and arms askew, skin glowing in the moonlight from the window. One of her arms covers her eyes, and if he strains, he thinks he might hear the soft sound of her snoring. Smiling, he touches the cloth to her knee so he doesn’t startle her.

“Mmmm.”

“You sleeping?”

“Mmm, not yet.” Her voice is low and rumbly, and she peeks out beneath her arm to grin at him contentedly. “That was nice.”

“Nice?!”

She chuckles, and his breath catches at the movement. The image is burned into his brain, and he vows to make her laugh at every opportunity from now on.

“Amazing, then.” Her grin has turned into a wide, toothy smile, blue eyes peering up through sleepy lids, reassuring him of the truth of her statement.

Mulder swells with pride and cleans her up. Settling down next to her, she leans up on her elbow and kisses him, dragging her teeth along his lower lip and then looks at him. She doesn’t say a word, but in the comfortable silence, he can feel her thoughts. She’s happy, and he did that. His hand rises to cup her cheek and she sinks into it, closing her eyes and sighing. The contentment that rolls off of her wraps around him like a blanket. 

Turning her face, she kisses his palm and smiles shyly. “Be right back.”

She heads to the bathroom, and Mulder adjusts himself on the bed. He fidgets again, moves on his side. There’s something wrong. Is her bed too soft? He bounces, adjusts the pillows, fetches his boxers from the floor and puts them on before sinking back under the blankets. Her comforter is soft but not overly warm. 

_Everything’s perfect_ , he thinks. 

Suddenly panic rises within him, the guilt from earlier almost pushing him over with its weight. **_What has he done?_**

He sees it now, a vision manifesting with excruciating clarity. Two paths laid out in front of him. The first - the comfort of her bed, the warmth of her embrace. Bubbling happiness in his chest. A bright light that blinds him. And the second - shadows and darkness, but his eyes pierce through them. Scully at his side, banishing the darkness slowly, inch by inch. He knows he can’t have both.

This could have been something good and whole and right. A respite from the horror of their difficult cases. An island where he could forget. But he knows himself, he knows what he needs to do, and things with Scully could never be just a momentary escape. 

_He didn’t know… **didn’t know**_. The intensity of their time together, the feelings that welled up within him. He didn’t think he was capable of them, knew for sure that he could lose himself in her, that she would unwittingly consume him.

When she comes out of the bathroom, he’s yanking on his jeans and can’t meet her gaze.

“You’re leaving.” 

He peeks over and sees her toes digging into the rug, but he doesn't speak. Staring at it, the white and blue checks blur, and her feet disappear behind a curtain of uninvited tears. He blinks fiercely, looks away.

He continues dressing, and he hears the whisper of her pulling on her pajamas, discarded on the floor in the heat of their passion. Several times he opens his mouth to speak, thoughts half-formed into inadequate words. What he wants. What he **_needs_**. But what about what she needs? The awareness, the connection they had only minutes ago fades. It’s replaced by sudden and terrible uncertainty.

Completely clothed, he turns to her. She’s lying in bed, curled on her side away from him, her hair fanned out and hiding her face.

“Scully--”

“I know.”

She knows?

“You can’t let this interfere with the work, right? That’s what you’re going to say?” She says, voice thick and flat.

“We can’t… **_I_** can’t...”

She doesn’t say anything. He watches the rise and fall of her body as she breathes, and it steadies him.

“That was…a lot,” Mulder says, as he perches on the edge of the bed, ready to take flight at any moment. Being so near and yet knowing those last few inches, pressed against her side, are an impossible distance.

She turns to face him, face stoic, cheeks dry. It doesn’t comfort him.

“I wondered how long it would take,” Scully looks at him, hiding away. That connection they had, so intense and unexpected, scurrying away in the shadows of her bedroom. 

“I could lose myself in this…and I just can’t,” he says. 

“I know.” She bites her swollen lips, and his gaze can’t help but linger on them. He knows what she tastes like. How can he make himself forget? 

Dread rises in his chest as they look at each other. Strangers with a tenuous connection. No longer partners from before, or lovers as of tonight, but something in-between. Would it be like this forever, or could they return to the safety of their partnership?

“Can we go back? To the way it was?” Mulder can’t believe he could be so lucky to have had this moment with Scully, that he could discard her so easily, and that she’d still be willing to stay.

At her silence, he looks up at her, the fear crawling in his belly and making him feel sick. Her hair is wild, the bed sheets tangled beneath her, but her eyes pierce into his with steely blue determination, and her mouth is set in a stubborn line. She’s sitting up ramrod straight, her back rigid, her shoulders set. 

“I don't have a _choice_ , Mulder.” 

The corner of her mouth turns up in a small smile, and he lets out his breath in a ragged sigh. This quest is hers just as much as it is his, now. He knows he can’t do it without her, at least not for very long. Hates himself for indulging in this moment tonight, that he could have lost it all because of his impulsiveness.

He smiles at her sadly and wrenches his gaze away, pushes himself off of her bed, and flees from her apartment before he can change his mind. The key twists in her lock with finality, his head a mess of conflicted emotions, the walk to his car a blur. 

Taking a moment in his car, head bowed, he polishes his memories of tonight. Turns it into a small gem, buries it under the weight of his obligations. Tells himself he regrets giving in, regrets the weakness that led him here tonight. Knows that deep down, his weakness is not being strong enough to stay.

**Author's Note:**

> FEED ME!
> 
> Feedback is wonderful. <3


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